Cruising the San Andreas fault line highway

In July 2016 I am venturing to the West Coast of North America for a month of sightseeing, photo taking, tourist making, hire car braking, earth quaking and bear handshaking. Doing all the tourism things. 

The itinerary has my travel bud and I flying into Canada, eh. We will then do all the touristy things in Vancouver before whipping down the coast into the United States. 

Next up will be Seattle because why not it's on the route, San Fransisco, Carmel, Monterey, staying with Robert Downey Jr in Los Angeles for a few days, and then driving down the coast a bit more to crash on Mickey and Minnie's couch at Anaheim for a few days before flying to Honolulu for some R & R because holidays are so stressful.

The west coast highway runs almost parallel with the San Andreas fault. Nothing says I had a great holiday like a earthquake emergency. 

We will also be spending time in Yosemite, home of tall red trees, Yosemite Sam probably, waterfalls and probably other types of wild things, all carefully packaged into a big box with a big red bow of touristy goodness. Nothing says tranquility like 20 bus loads of pensioners from Florida.

Everything I know about the wildlife in North America I picked up from Looney Tunes cartoons. 

Chipmunks? Alvin. 

Moose? Have you not seen Rocky and Bullwinkle? They are hilarious. They won't hurt you. Rocky was the flying squirrel and his best friend,  Bullwinkle, was the dim-witted but good natured anthropomorphic moose. They spent their time fighting Russian type spies and stuff like that. If I drop my thick KGB accent I'll be fine.

Wile E. Coyote? If I notice any complex and ludicrous devices with ACME Corporation written on them along the side of the road in California I'll probably drive around them like a normal person. 

Wolves? Kevin Costner went running with them in a movie; they just want to play.

Bears? Bears will leave you alone if you give them a big jar of honey with a honey dipper and a picnic basket. And according to memes on Google, Canada have bear street gangs, so I'll be sure to join one when travelling through Vancouver on my moose. 

Stayin' Alive

As Mark Twain famously uttered about growing vegetables on your balcony, "All you need in life is ignorance and confidence, and then success is sure". Right on, Marky Mark.

So, with Twain's guidance and tentative approval, I've seemingly decided to become a 'plant person'. Let me tell you a story. Don't worry; it is not a long story. Even if it was a lengthy anecdote that's likely more your problem that mine because this is my blog actually.

Anyway, once upon a time about five weeks ago I was gifted a strawberry plant, by someone who was clearly unaware of my past arrests, prosecutions and convictions as a violent plant murderer. 

My recidivism rate has been high over the years. I couldn't help it, it's just who I am.  It was a time of plant hardship; trees died, shrubs ravaged, flowers annihilated, the lives of young plants cut too short, perennial herb families torn apart.

While in some cases the death penalty may be a viable option for dealing with people who kill plants for a hobby, some people can change after committing murder.

The statistics are fairly low, but some people who have been found guilty of murder can be rehabilitated. With this in mind, I receipted the strawberry plant, with the hope and the promise of a new dawn, a new day, a new life, or of someone who doesn't know what's good for them.

So I left the strawberry plant at work in the sun that weekend. It didn't end well. My strawberry plant died, didn't it. Cue sad violins and all the sad emoticons to illustrate all my sad feels of that sad time.

Then, a few weeks ago, completely unprompted, the same enabler gave me a tomato plant. It was tall, it was healthy and it didn't look like it wanted to die. So much pressure. SO MUCH. This was the turning point. I could look to the past and learn from my mistakes, just like with the Titanic, Chernobyl, Costa Concordia and Tiger Woods.

This time I sought help, and was rewarded with much conflicting plant care advice. Gardening is confusing and hard.  I had a list of instructions of things to do to care for the thing that effectively amounted to 'water it and don't kill it'.

Growing vegetables comes with great responsibility. For example, you have to give it a name.  My little tomato plant is called Harry Highplants and also Harry Potted. Behold the two-named plant!

And it's going strong! I've got little tomatoes.  I've turned over a new leaf, so to speak. The damn tomatoes want it all though. 

They want sun, sun, sun but they also want shelter. They can't have everything they want. We don't always get what we want in life. They probably want to live in the garden of an ocean front mansion in Malibu, but only the rich and famous tomatoes get to do that.

Feb(r)uary

Oh great, it's February again.  Who the hell can pronounce February?  I would like to stage an intervention to rid the western world of having to use the 'r' in February, or at the very least be able to ruthlessly mock extra ruddy consonants by enclosing them in a mocking-type set of brackets. I don't see the point of silent letters.  Empty letters.  I blame the French for this nonsense.

That crazed word fanatic, Shakespeare, has a pointless 'e' desperately clinging to the end of his name like some pathetic groupie.  And thanks to Willy Shakes and other overwordiness muppets, we have an abundance of words, which means simple folk are able to breathlessly talk and talk all day long, repeating words over and over again.

Fortunately some years ago - maybe like a decade ago or something - someone decided that February sucked and it deserved to have just 28 days, with an extended 29 days every fourth year.  Smart. I think we should also leap over Wednesdays, because no-one likes a week day with a silent 'd'.